Principal Solutions Architect

Role Overview

• Lead and Scale the Solutions Architect Team: Provide day-to-day leadership for the SA organization, setting clear expectations, priorities, and accountability.
• Ensure the team operates as a cohesive unit aligned to business objectives and partner outcomes.
• Develop and Mentor Solutions Architects: Own professional growth through coaching, structured feedback, and hands-on guidance.
• Build technical depth, customer-facing effectiveness, and execution discipline across the team.
• Define Standards for Solutions Architect Work and Deliverables: Establish consistent standards for how Solutions Architects scope, design, document, and hand off solutions.
• Ensure clarity, quality, and repeatability in all SA outputs.
• Own the Solutions Architect Operating Model and Processes: Design and continuously improve the operating model for the SA function, including intake, prioritization, engagement management, and delivery workflows.
• Balance rigor with speed to support bridge solutions.
• Drive Consistency and Quality Across Engagements: Ensure consistent execution by implementing review cadences, playbooks, and quality checks.
• Measure, Inspect, and Improve Team Performance: Define and track metrics that reflect team effectiveness (e.g., throughput, reuse, cycle time, engagement success).
• Use data and retrospectives to continuously raise the bar.
• Champion Strategic Partner Relationships: Interface directly with enterprise partners, understand the underlying needs, and drive solutions that expand Shippo's product portfolio and enhance customer capabilities.
• Set Technical Direction for Solution Delivery: Guide the team in creating solution architectures, API specifications, and bridge solutions using Shippo-approved infrastructure and processes.
• Own the customer developer experience, including SDKs and documentation.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software development
• 5+ years leading teams
• History of directly engaging and interfacing with customers, clients, and partners
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work with all levels of the organization.
• Track record of designing scalable integration architectures that can support multiple enterprise clients
• Solid understanding of object-oriented or functional programming and familiarity with various design and architectural patterns.
• Exceptional verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Deep understanding of customer needs and passion for customer success.
• Ability to look ahead to identify opportunities, foster a culture of innovation, and build for scale.
• Coding experience in server-side programming languages (e.g. Go, Python, Java, Ruby) as well as database languages (SQL)
• Experience working with server-side MVC frameworks (e.g. Django, .NET, Spring, Rails, Phoenix)
• Solid understanding of object-oriented programming and familiarity with various design and architectural patterns
• Exhibit core behaviors focused on craftsmanship, continuous improvement, and team success.
• BS or MS degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• Bonus: Prior experience with XMS integrations (OMS, WMS, TMS)
• Prior experience working or interacting with shipping and/or postal carriers
• Experience using GoLang and Python in production
• Familiarity with microservices architectures.
• Experience integrating with APIs that use REST, SOAP, gRPC and other technologies.
• Interest and experience in performance tuning, concurrency, microservices, security, data analytics, and web stack.
• Experience with Django.
• Past experience and success in building scalable APIs or services.
• Interest and experience in performance tuning, concurrency, microservices, security, data pipelines, and web stack.
• Experience with DevOps tooling such as Docker, Terraform, CircleCI, SumoLogic, PagerDuty, etc.
• Experience with AWS/Cloud services such as EC2, S3, Lambda, Route 53, Cloud Formation, Cloudflare, Elastic Beanstalk, IAM, etc.

Tech Stack

• AWS
• Cloud
• Django
• Docker
• EC2
• GRPC
• Java
• Microservices
• Python
• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails
• SOAP
• Spring
• SQL
• Terraform
• Go
• .NET

Benefits

• Healthcare coverage for medical, dental, and vision (90% covered by the company, incl. dependents).
• Pets coverage is also available!
• Take-as-much-as-you-need vacation policy & flexible working hours
• One week-long company wide winter slow down
• 3 Volunteer Days Off (VTOs)
• WFH stipend to set up your home office
• Charity donation match up to $100
• Dedicated programs, coaching, tools, and resources for your professional and career growth as well as an individual learning stipend for your personal and focused growth
• Fun team in person time through our Shippos Everywhere program which includes regular team and company off-sites throughout the year as well as local Shippos gatherings